The Whitby High School

What Ofsted said

From the inspection on 23 June 2026

From the moment pupils enter the school site, they are greeted warmly by staff. Staff have increased their expectations about how pupils should behave and have made them explicit. Most pupils live up to these high expectations. They behave well at social times, enjoying the spaces where they can chat with their friends or play some sport. At present, pupils have an uneven experience of teaching across the curriculum. They do not achieve as well as they should. In the sixth form, the standard of teaching is higher. Students typically make steady progress through the curriculum from their starting points and most achieve well. Pupils’ needs are identified more readily than they were in the past. Leaders have begun to equip staff with the expertise to reduce pupils’ barriers to learning. That said, there are still some pupils whose needs are not met sufficiently well. Pupils benefit from high-quality pastoral support. They feel safe in school. Staff deal with incidents of bullying effectively. Some pupils, including some with special educational needs and/or disabilities, do not attend school regularly enough. This means that they are missing out on all that the school has to offer and gaps in their learning are not rectified. Pupils enjoy a range of enrichment opportunities from art and photography to role-play games and dodgeball. They are keen to take up positions of leadership, for example ambassadors represent the school proudly. Pupils spoke excitedly about their part in the school’s recent musical production. These experiences help to build their confidence. Pupils’ understanding of the wider world is developed through international trips, for example to New York, Berlin and Paris.

What the school should improve

• Leaders should continue to embed strategies to reduce any barriers to pupils’ learning and wellbeing, so that their needs are met.
• Leaders should ensure that the strategies for improving attendance are fully embedded and have the intended impact in raising attendance and reducing persistent absenteeism.
• Leaders should ensure that teachers use assessment effectively to check pupils’ understanding and to adapt learning as necessary.
• Leaders should embed their strategies to help pupils to secure foundational knowledge, particularly in writing, so that any gaps in this important learning are addressed swiftly.
• Leaders should continue to embed the recently revised curriculum for personal, social, health and economic education so that, over time, pupils develop secure and detailed knowledge of this important learning.

Read the full Ofsted report (opens in a new tab)